Ethical Distinction Research Articles

Machines and the Moral Community

A key distinction in ethics is between members and nonmembers of the moral community. Over time, our notion of this community has expanded as we have moved from a rationality criterion to a sentience criterion for membership. I argue that a sentience criterion is insufficient to accommodate all members of the moral community; the true underlying criterion can be understood in terms of whether a being has interests. This may be extended to conscious, self-aware machines, as well as to any autonomous intelligent machines. Such machines exhibit an ability to formulate desires for the course of their own existence; this gives them basic moral standing. While not all machines display autonomy, those which do must be treated as moral patients; to ignore their claims to moral recognition is to repeat past errors. I thus urge moral generosity with respect to the ethical claims of intelligent machines.

Palliative sedation: not just normal medical practice. Ethical reflections on the Royal Dutch Medical Association's guideline on palliative sedation

The main premise of the Royal Dutch Medical Association's (RDMA) guideline on palliative sedation is that palliative sedation, contrary to euthanasia, is normal medical practice. Although we do not deny...

The Gothic Vocabulary of Fear

The Gothic lexical field of fear differs sharply from that of the New Testa ment Greek it translates, as well as from those of the modern languages that gloss Gothic in dictionaries and grammars and the analogous fields in the other old Germanic languages. For example, the frequently attested West-Germanic cognates of dread (OE ondraedan, OHG intratan, and OS antdredan) are semantically distant from the morphologically analogous, but independently formed Gothic hapax undredan ‘to take care for.’ 1 What follows is intended to demonstrate that the Gothic lexicon distinguishes between different kinds of fear according to their cause, operation, and moral value determined by the disposition of the sufferer. Moreover, the Gothic language uses its capacity to distinguish between prudent and ignominious fear through vocabulary to underscore the distinction between faithful and faithless fear that is established largely through narration and dialogue in the Greek New Testament. T he fundamental divide in the Gothic semantic field of fear lies between expectant fear and shocked fear. Expectant fear, indicated primarily by agis, may be associated with trembling and may lead to action. Shocked fear, most often indicated by faurhtei, is associated with surprise and paraly sis. The semantic field thus divided is crossed again by an ethical distinction between reverent fear of high moral value and mundane fear that reveals a deficiency of faith and consequently has low moral value. Reverent fear is most commonly indicated with a member of the agis family, and mundane fear with a relative of faurhtei. The ethical distinction between reverent and mundane fear is suggested in the Greek source text by the opposition of δeιλία to φόβος, but the distinction is more thoroughly lexicalized in the Gothic translation, so that it organizes the whole semantic field and restricts the translation of Greek words that imply no moral judgment, such as ἔκστασις.

Sociological concept of morale

The author first discusses the overall unity of the total normative regulation, from which it is separated in the late Roman empire the right, but only in the new century and the morale. There are analyzed the relationship between the moral and ethical reflection and Weber's distinction between pure ethics will (Gesinnungsethik) and ethics of responsibility (Verantwortungsethik). The morale is determined by the good as the highest value, as a specific form of social norms but also as a kind of human behavior. These three definitions can be combined in an integrative approach. There are examined the dimensions of moral statements, subjective and objective side of morality, as well as the difference between morale and morality. A general notion of morale can not be defined in substantive but only in formal way . The formal definition is a constituent of general as well as of sociological concept of morale and it is related to morality as a social phenomenon. Its essence is to define the morale by specific norms, the characteristics of the internal and external mandatory (with the pricks of conscience as the most distinctive moral sanction and control exercised by the formal not institutionalized or diffuse society ), and in consideration of morality as a social process (actions of people associated moral norms ). The basic types of social moral process - being, education, functioning and changing of morale are described. There are briefly analyzed the influence of society to the morale and social function of morale, with special emphasis on the relationship between law and morale.

Using and Refusing

James Rachels has argued on Utilitarian grounds that since removing life-sustaining treatment and physician-assisted suicide both aim at the very same end,hastening death to limit suffering, there are no morally significant moral distinctions between them. Others have argued for maintaining this distinction based on various forms of deontological and rights-based ethical theories that maintain that all acts of killing are inherently wrong. I argue that the enduring controversy over physician-assisted suicide might not be caused by such fundamental differences of opinion about moral theory, such as that which exists between Utilitarianism and Deontology, so much as by a commonly held misunderstanding of technology. In particular, the conclusion that there are no relevant ethical distinctions between killing and letting die can only be drawn by a Utilitarian, such as Rachels, by ignoring the recent work of philosophers of technology on the non-neutrality thesis.

Intoning the Male and Female Voices in a Novel by Eva Figes

AMY CHRISTINE PARKER University of Manitoba The book Light, with Monet at Giverny: A Novel is a story that imaginatively describes a day in the life of the Monet family. It is written by one of the feminist writers of the first wave which ended in the seventies, ‘‘Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Eva Figes, Germaine Greer, Shulamith Firestone, and Kate Millett’’, as described by Susan Watkins in Twentieth Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory into Practice. Watkins’ book describes these women as being opposed to contemporary interpretations of Freudian theory, and in particular to certain aspects of his description of the Oedipus complex which they see as patriarchal and arising from capitalist values and the hypothesis that hysteria is self-motived rather than a problem of sexuality. Yet what Sally Robinson recognizes in Engendering the Subject: Gender and Self-representation in Contemporary Women’s Fiction as the refreshing plurality of the voices of these feminist authors is characteristic as well of those who remain faithful to religion or Christianity, which are traditionally feminine voices. This paper searches for the developing voice of women in this work of fiction by Eva Figes and recognizes as well the presence of the continuing male voices. A positive aspect of Figes’ novels is the fact that she often finds a way for a character to thrive despite harsh conditions. Throughout the novel, exterior sounds such as a clock counting the hours, a nearby passing train, singing birds and galloping horses create some sonorous effects. As the land lies amongst hills and a river, echoes can also be heard. These sounds punctuate the dialogues and silences within which much of the meaning of the story is contained. In this novel about an artistic family, the auditory effects are enhanced by visual motifs of light and color. In another of her novels, The Knot, there is a similar recurrence of ‘[n]ot

Sober cannibals, drunken Christians: Melville, Kierkegaard, and tragic optimism in polarized worlds

Despite that they didn't know each other, the writing styles of American writer Herman Melville (1819-1891) and Danish writer Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) complement each other, especially their humour, irony, penchants for paradox, and passions for imagery and poetics. In addition, their works similarly address issues of the world and time. Aesthetic, ethical, social, philosophical, and theological paths on which they walk reveal similar footprints. World historical circumstances to which they were responding in their time and to which they continue to respond in our time are not dissimilar. Melville and Kierkegaard's rebounding echoes reverberate in our highly charged and polarized times, speaking especially to the timeless conundrum of what Kierkegaard calls the disastrous confounding of politics and religion and what Melville calls drunken Christianity, namely, the intoxicated mixing of worldly issues with otherworldly issues without care paid to maintaining necessary ethical distinctions. These two writers are like two prophets crying from New York and Copenhagen street corners about our own cultural wildernesses. They are truth-tellers and authors who ought to be read and studied because they have something urgent to say about our shifty human condition and our polarised world.

Trade in human tissue products

Trade in human tissue in Australia is prohibited by state law, and in ethical guidelines by the National Health and Medical Research Council: National statement on ethical conduct in human research; Organ and tissue donation by living donors: guidelines for ethical practice for health professionals. However, trade in human tissue products is a common practice especially for: reconstructive orthopaedic or plastic surgery; novel human tissue products such as a replacement trachea created by using human mesenchymal stem cells; biomedical research using cell lines, DNA and protein provided through biobanks. Cost pressures on these have forced consideration of commercial models to sustain their operations. Both the existing and novel activities require a robust framework to enable commercial uses of human tissue products while maintaining community acceptability of such practices, but to date no such framework exists. In this article, we propose a model ethical framework for ethical governance which identifies specific ethical issues such as: privacy; unique value of a person's tissue; commodification of the body; equity and benefit to the community; perverse incentives; and "attenuation" as a potentially useful concept to help deal with the broad range of subjective views relevant to whether it is acceptable to commercialise certain human tissue products.

Making sense of touch in dance movement therapy: A trainee's perspective

This paper is based upon one dance movement therapy (DMT) trainee's attempt to match theory, practice and clinical governance issues regarding touch within DMT. In her training classes she experienced different kinds of therapeutic touch, yet found a lack of support within professional guidelines for the way touch is used in practice and DMT literature. The paper highlights ways in which touch is viewed differently within the related fields of both body and verbal psychotherapies. The essential nature and power of touch for development and communication is addressed. Useful ethical distinctions between types of touch and between ‘boundary crossings’ and ‘boundary violations’ are drawn from body psychotherapy as one means of discerning acceptable touch. The paper offers examples of the trainee's experiences of touch and the usefulness of touch for certain DMT client populations. It concludes by calling for research and professional guidelines to assist DMT practitioners to make sense of positive therapeutic touch.

Towards the transhuman athlete: therapy, non-therapy and enhancement1

This essay examines the future of sport by considering how medical and ethical distinctions between therapy, non-therapy and enhancement affect the likely use of human enhancements. It considers whether one can easily distinguish among these categories and investigates the legitimacy of such distinctions with respect to medical intervention. It argues that the ambiguity of medical concepts deems that an ethical distinction is even more difficult to justify, particularly where this involves prohibiting athletic enhancements. The essay characterizes the athlete's pursuit of performance-enhancing technology as a legitimate biocultural health entitlement. This argument requires that athletes be given some limited entitlement to utilize such technology for the purpose of competition. Moreover, it rejects the claim that the non-modified athlete has been harmed due to their being marginalized from sport due to their conscientious objection to enhancements. To this end, sports should be understood as practices of technological negotiation, where new innovation supersedes old, including that of biology.

Ethics for the Pediatrician: Imperiled Newborns: Limiting Treatment

1. Mark R. Mercurio, MD, MA* 1. *Associate Professor, Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics; Director, Yale Pediatric Ethics Program, New Haven, Conn. Most physician effort and energy in neonatology is extended in an effort to preserve life. Nevertheless, circumstances sometimes arise wherein the best course may be to withhold or withdraw a certain treatment, based on poor prognosis. Such circumstances might include extreme prematurity, severe congenital anomaly, imminent death regardless of treatment, or evidence of profound neurologic injury. Treatments that might be withheld or withdrawn include resuscitation, life-sustaining medical treatment such as mechanical ventilation or artificial nutrition and hydration, and surgical procedures. What follows is intended as a guide to those considering such decisions, based, in part, on policy statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). There may be important psychological differences between withdrawing a treatment in progress and withholding it (ie, declining to initiate the specific therapy). Some individuals (staff or family) might have more difficulty stopping a therapy once it has begun. Physicians considering withdrawal of a therapy should be cognizant of this concern but should not mistake it for a sound ethical distinction. The AAP Committee on Bioethics has stated that most philosophical and legal commentators find no important ethical or legal distinction between withdrawing and withholding; (1) that is, if it is ethically acceptable to withhold a given treatment from a given newborn, generally it is acceptable to withdraw it. The determination of when it is ethically acceptable to withdraw or withhold any treatment in the case of a newborn generally is based on the patient's best interest standard and on recognition of parental authority. The patient's best interest standard essentially states that the decision should be made by weighing the anticipated benefits and burdens (to the patient) of …

Traditional Chinese law v. Weberian legal rationality

A universal theory of law cannot be based on Weber's paradigm of the rationality of western law. Abstraction and systématisation of law are compared in western law and traditional Chines codes. Chinese law was not substantively irrational but governed by ethical and status distinctions. Chinese legislators worked with humanistic goals. The empiricism of traditional Chinese law is as valid a form of intellectuality as the deductive rationality of Civil Law and the inductive rationality of Common Law.

The Ethics of Speculation

Recently there has been an outpouring of consumer frustration over rising food and energy prices. Many politicians railed against “speculators” who allegedly drove up the prices of key necessities. Is speculation unethical? This article reviews the traditional arguments against speculation. Many of the standard criticisms confuse speculation with gambling. In much the same way as ethicists now draw distinctions between usury and normal business interest, we draw a distinction between socially useful speculation and gambling. Gambling involves taking on risk with no plausible expectation of making a profit. Gambling may provide entertainment value to some people, but like other addictive activities causes grave harm to a subset of users. Speculation involves taking on a business risk with a plausible expectation that a profit will result. Speculators provide an important risk bearing service by taking on risks that others do not want. They help markets to function better by helping to incorporate information into prices as well as providing liquidity. Speculators may actually reduce shortages by causing quicker price increases that motivate producers to increase production and consumers to conserve. But even socially useful speculation may have an ethical dark side. Does such speculation cause damage by adding excess volatility to prices? Speculators may contribute to price bubbles. At what point does legitimate speculation become odious “price gouging?” We also draw an ethical distinction between speculation, which seeks to benefit from changing prices, and manipulation, actions taken to push prices away from their economically appropriate levels.

The 1960s – long hair, flowers and morality mash: ethical appraisal of the clash that helped shape today’s Western society

The 1960s will be remembered as a major clash that helped shape today’s Western society. Young people were breaking out of the moulds that had been cast by their parents’ post-war era. The conflict brought about significant social change all over Western society. Western man searched frantically for a new world, willing to risk the hardship of revolution. In a world full of confusing and conflicting approaches in terms of how to view man, the Bible has the clear answer: man is created in the image of God, and is, in this capacity, God’s vice- regent and image-bearer. However, the Christian church is by- and-large remarkably indecisive as the social conscience of Western society. The main thrust of the sixties was anti-status quo, anti-esta- blishment, anti-materialist. In the process of man’s self-deter- mination on either side of the conflict, great erosion of man’s greatest gift occurred: ethical distinction. The spiritual vacuum created by anti-establishment forces led to confusion and self- destruction.

Is all fair in biological warfare? The controversy over genetically engineered biological weapons

Advances in genetics may soon make possible the development of ethnic bioweapons that target specific ethnic or racial groups based upon genetic markers. While occasional published reports of such research...

Should implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and permanent pacemakers in patients with terminal illness be deactivated?

The recently published 2008 Guidelines for Device-Based Therapy of Cardiac Rhythm Abnormalities1 include a discussion of ethical issues surrounding the deactivation of pacemakers, implanted cardioverter-defibrillator (ICDs), and CRT devices in patients who are terminally ill. The authors rightly note that most clinicians make an ethical distinction between deactivating an ICD and deactivating a permanent pacemaker. Programming an ICD so that it will not provide antitachycardia therapy in the event of ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation in a terminally ill patient who requests this action seems to be widely accepted as morally permissible.2–8 Many patients and physicians find the deactivation of an ICD in this situation as morally equivalent to a “do not resuscitate” order. Deactivation of an ICD in a patient who is dying of a terminal illness, whether cardiac or another condition, prevents the delivery of painful ICD shocks and allows the patient to die of the natural progression of their underlying disease. As such, this action seems a humane withdrawal of a futile medical treatment. Response by Zellner et al on p 336 In contrast to deactivating an ICD in a dying patient, there is more controversy regarding whether a pacemaker can be deactivated at the request of a terminally ill patient, especially if the patient is pacemaker dependent. Although some authors have suggested that it may be morally permissible to discontinue pacing therapy in patients who are hopelessly ill and request this action,5 we believe that there can be a fundamental difference between discontinuation of antitachycardia and antibradycardia therapies in some patients, depending on their degree of pacemaker dependency. For example, consider a patient with complete heart block who has long had a permanent pacemaker implanted. Pacing by itself does not prevent the patient from following the natural course of their disease and does …

Analysis of multicultural meta‐ethical clinical perceptions concerning life and death of patients

PurposeThe prime objective of this article is related to dignified human beings as patients in clinical interventions. The main attention of such a perception focuses on observance of humaneness in relationships among physicians, patients, family members, and community at large. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines in depth, analytical deliberations concerning traditional and modern values of medical care and healthcare knowledge and practices.FindingsTherefore, we need to attest that we live in a global village in which multicultural people must live side‐by‐side, if they desire to peacefully coexist. We must assume that human values are based upon general agreements about ethical issues. Such agreements rely on a framework of equitable treatments of all mankind. Medical ethics is about committed codes and oaths of professional medical authorities to protect natural rights, human rights, and civil rights of patients in clinical interventions. It strives to achieve professional objectives to facilitate patients to be recovered from pain and suffering and regain their health in order to live the good life.Practical implicationsThis paper is devoted to define the notions relevant to the philosophies of quality of life, ethical, and moral problems concerning clinical medicine, and preventive care systems. It analyzes certain ethical and moral distinctions between medical care and healthcare services, and indicates that cautions should be observed in discussing these notions within the context of preventive care and clinical care systems.Originality/valueThis paper explores the following questions: What is the meaning of a psychosomatic normal life? How life should be respected? What are the meta‐medical practices? What should be the logical and philosophical foundations for medical care and healthcare ethics? How should clinicians and practitioners respect not only cost‐benefit analysis but also consider cost‐effectiveness analysis in providing and promoting medical care and healthcare services for patients?

The ethics of self-change: becoming oneself by way of antidepressants or psychotherapy?

This paper explores the differences between bringing about self-change by way of antidepressants versus psychotherapy from an ethical point of view, taking its starting point in the concept of authenticity. Given that the new antidepressants (SSRIs) are able not only to cure psychiatric disorders but also to bring about changes in the basic temperament structure of the person--changes in self-feeling--does it matter if one brings about such changes of the self by way of antidepressants or by way of psychotherapy? Are antidepressants a less good alternative than psychotherapy because antidepressants are in some way less authentic than psychotherapy? And, if so, what does this mean exactly? In this paper I try to show that the self-change brought about by way of antidepressants challenges basic assumptions of authentic self-change that are deeply ingrained in our Western culture: that changes in self should be brought about by laborious 'self-work' in which one explores the deep layers of the self (the unconscious) and comes to realise who one really is and should become. To become oneself has been held to presuppose such a journey. While the assumed importance of self-work appears to be badly founded on closer inspection, the notions of exploring and knowing oneself appear to be more promising in fleshing out an ethical distinction between psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutic practice with the help of the concept of authenticity. Psychotherapy, to a much greater extent than psychopharmacological interventions, involves the whole profile of the self in its attempts to effect a change, not only in the temperament but also in the character of the person in question, and this is important from an ethical point of view. In the article, the concepts of self-change, authenticity, temperament and character are presented and used in order to understand and flesh out the relevant ethical differences between the practice of psychotherapy and the use of antidepressants. Looping, collective effects of psychopharmacological self-change in a cultural context are also considered in this context.

Virtue, Mixed Emotions and Moral Ambivalence

AbstractAristotelian virtue ethics invests emotions and feelings with much moral significance. However, the moral and other conflicts that inevitably beset human life often give rise to states of emotional division and ambivalence with problematic implications for any understanding of virtue as complete psychic unity of character and conduct. For one thing, any admission that the virtuous are prey to conflicting passions and desires may seem to threaten the crucial virtue ethical distinction between the virtuous and the continent. One recent attempt to sustain this distinction – considered in this paper – maintains that the contrary-to-virtue emotions and desires of the virtuous (by contrast with those of the continent) must relinquish their motive power as reasons for action. Following some attention to the psychological status of feelings and emotions – in particular their complex relations with cognition and reason – this paper rejects this solution in favour of a more constructive view of emotional conflict.

On the charisma, civility, and practical goodness of "modern" Christianity in post-Soviet Lithuania

This article examines The Word of Faith, one of the largest congregations of "modern" charismatic Christians in post-Soviet Lithuania. The ethnographic focus is on the church's extensive network of trust, altruistic exchange, and sociability, known as bendravimas. These networks are theorized as a kind of civil society that allows its members to claim "ethical distinction" and enables them to take a critical stance toward the surrounding social milieu, perceived to be in moral disarray. The Word of Faith is discussed in relation to the national Catholic Church (its principal religious rival) and vis-à-vis broader Lithuanian society. The article suggests that it is concrete everyday practices deemed to be moral and civil, rather than abstract Christian precepts, that motivate Word of Faith believers to be "good people." It is also argued that such practices constitute important means for engendering and reproducing the charisma of this "modern" evangelical congregation.